Country music artist Gretchen Wilson kicked off 2006 with her first headlining arena tour of the U.S. The Redneck Revolution Tour will see Wilson and her crew spending much of 2006 on the road, relying on Electro-Voice sound reinforcement equipment from Dale Morris Leasing.
Phil Scobee, head of audio for Dale Morris Leasing, designed a slightly smaller version of the E-V X-Line/XLC rig that helped Wilson grow into an arena contender as the support act on Kenny Chesney’s 2005 Somewhere in the Sun stadium tour. Once again, the entire system is powered by E-V P3000RL remote-control DSP amplifiers running E-V’s IRIS software.
The standard show configuration comprises main X-Line arrays flown 12 deep per side, coupled with arrays of 12 Xsubs; Xsubs are also on hand for ground subs at stage left and right. The 270-degree sidefill P.A. comprises XLC compact line array boxes. Two XLC boxes are used as downfills at centerstage. Stage monitors and band wireless is also all E-V. Wilson uses a BLUE Kiwi microphone for the acoustic segment of the show. The Klark Teknik compliment was also assembled using the Chesney tour rack as a template, and features Helix digital EQs, DN9848 processors and DN6000 analyzers. Midas XL88 matrix mixers are used for the P.A. sends. Support act Van Zant (from Southern Rock’s first family, Lynyrd Skynyrd and 38 Special fame) is also out with an all-E-V rig, from mics to monitors.
Tour production manager Ryan Nelson says, “These systems proved their ease of use, high-performance and reliability last year, and things are going just as smoothly on Gretchen’s first major headlining tour. In particular, the IRIS software helps the sound crew—including FOH engineer David Haskell, monitor engineer Peter Bowman and systems engineer Curt Jenkins—to provide arena-sized sound with great attention to detail, using minimal manpower. IRIS simply saves a lot of time; it gives us the assurance of both predicting system performance and system component supervision, all from a wireless tablet, while tweaking and tuning in real time. Plus, the E-V boxes simply sound great, making the system an ideal balance of technology and musicality. The same goes for the RE1 wireless systems we’re using for instruments and backing vocals—the band is raving about them. Everyone commented on the improved frequency response and more ‘musical’ sonic performance. This is going to be a very big year for Gretchen Wilson, her band and crew—we already have 110 shows ahead of us, and we have the P.A. to help take it all to the next level.”
For more information on the rig, visit www.electrovoice.com. For more touring news, visit mixonline.com/livesound/tours/.
